


Even If the Waters Rise

by gyromitra



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Shadowrun Fusion, Blood and Gore, Blood and Violence, Cannibalism (Human on Metahuman), Cybernetics, Dragons, Eco-Terrorism, M/M, Mating Cycles, MerMay, Mermaids, Questionable Totem Choices, Questionable jokes, Riveting Plot Twists (I Wish), The Jackande Thing Is a Fling, Very Questionable Jokes in the Banter, Water Physics, questionable science
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-05-13
Updated: 2020-07-14
Packaged: 2021-03-02 17:14:43
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 21,213
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24170404
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gyromitra/pseuds/gyromitra
Summary: Dragons! Mermaids! Eco-terrorism as activism! Magic! Somewhere in there is plot! (There is indeed a plot. Actually, too much of it. Please, put back some of the plot.)A small outfit of runners working on private contract against the semi-illegal trade in mermaid meat.(Otherwise, an itty bitty Mermay AU based more or less loosely on Shadowrun)
Relationships: Doomfist: The Successor | Akande Ogundimu/Soldier: 76 | Jack Morrison, Reaper | Gabriel Reyes/Soldier: 76 | Jack Morrison
Comments: 6
Kudos: 30





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I'd love to say it's someone else's fault but that one's entirely on me - because I remembered Mermay late, thought about reverse Little Mermaid but then this idea popped in. The tags are for the full story.
> 
> Small FAQ for persons more familiar with SR:  
> \- But mermaids in SR are...? I made them metahuman and sexy as fuck.  
> \- Leviathans don't look like this! Boy, do I have issues with Sea Dragon's design, because personally I think it's underwhelming, unimaginative, and lazy.  
> \- Coyote, really? YES.

Coming off the sedation after being cut was always a mixed bag. This time, though, the bustle of the street outside filters in slowly, rising like a wave over the ocean of static and breaking when the stims start doing their job.

The first breath is always the hardest, some kink in the lungs that kicks them into filtration mode each time the loss of consciousness occurs and demands focus from Jack to consciously switch back into the atmospheric intake.

"With us again?"

"You tell me, you're in my brain."

"Being obstinate will net you no points," Sombra mentally scoffs. "The pain?"

"No worse than usual."

"Arms up. Good, neural's working with no lag. And thank you very much for that kick, the legs are doing fine too."

"All?" Jack looks over the utilitarian metal surfaces of his limbs, the make and the model different from anything else he has seen on the market.

"Now, yeah," Sombra winces, pulling the plug out. She doesn’t need it but had told him once there were times she felt safer working with one. "For final calibrations, I need more data, so let's slap synthskin on those."

"What are they, anyway?"

"Scrubbed milspec, last year's model, or so I'd been told."

Sombra directs the assistant. Each applied sheet of layered synthskin gives Jack a lurch of unpleasant sensations before settling into annoyance, tension, and oversensitivity. A dance he's familiar with - a day or two before the brain puts a dampener on the sensory input when it integrates properly.

"I know why you're doing this for free, but why is he spending so much on this?"

Sombra flinches.

"The last batch you got rid of was worth more than those."

"It won't stop the demand, only the price of the meat went up."

"And the ability to process it for consumption went down. You know what's my take on it," she signs something on her pad. "Anyway, have fun tonight. I'll get in touch with you tomorrow to finish the calibrations."

"Not seeing much of a difference now," Jack pulls on his clothes, mindful of the temporary sleeves making sure the skin stays in place. "Tell me I won’t control and crush anyone."

"Implemented mental blocks. No limiters, so they can over-perform and get bricked, too."

"Taking bets on when I brick them?"

"Honestly!" Sombra throws the pad at him and Jack deflects it into the wall - looking back to her with a sheepish grin as it falls to the ground. "Too slow. Also, I don't want to see you in the professional capacity for at least half a year, but I'm giving you a month."

"Not very generous, and you're making me think you don't like it in my head."

"I don't, it's a jumble there since..." She stops herself, glaring daggers at the assistant who, granted with the rare ability to read the room, makes himself scarce - finding something urgent to do in the back.

"Since the glorified accident at work I don't even remember, seriously, five years, it's enough to stop treating me like I'm going to break about it." Jack pulls up the hood. Sombra's thinking about something, her brows drawn together in a worried frown.

"Aren't you curious?"

"Not really. Nightmares are a clue enough that something took out a lot of bites, and really, can't blame them, can I?"

"That's enough." She sends him a slightly nauseated look. "Scram now, have fun."

"Do you think he will tell me where he got milspec from?"

"He didn't tell me, so he's not going to tell you."

"But you've got an inkling how he got it."

"Maybe." She waves him off and Jack rolls his eyes, shrugging. Needling her for information has never worked before, anyway, and probably never will.

"See you when I wreck those."

"Fuck off!"

In less than an hour, there will be no trace left of her inside - and of Jack himself - the room is already being stripped down as he makes his way out of the basement up the concrete stairs with walls covered with dangerous amounts of mildew. Pushing past a corner stall encroaching on the doorway, he picks up a wrapped piece of barely seared meat waiting for him and waves his bracelet at the chit reader.

The air is wet and salty, like waves on the harbor, not even the smells of the market drown it out. The corners of his lips curl up at the thought tomorrow, or the day after, he'll be back out there, out on the sea, taking a dive into its depths, water everywhere, below and above, invisible current carrying him on its whims. Jack hails down the cab, the smile still on his face.

It remains there even twenty minutes later as he gets off by the hotel, both far too expensive and far too cheap at the same time. Too expensive for his own tastes, too cheap for Gabe to rent a room in it. Alas, here they are - and he sends a quick text.

'I'm coming up.'

Almost to the top, feeling vaguely claustrophobic in the humming elevator thankfully bereft of the usual muzak (apparently some taste did come with the money, but not enough for the interior to keep consistent style), he gets the customary message back. 'Open.'

Jack lets out the breath he's been inadvertently holding in when the doors open and he's left in the corridor, looking for the right entrance. A suite, of course, worth a chuckle as he walks inside, the only source of light the city's glow coming in through the windows.

And Gabriel, of course - again - standing with his back to the window, the only discernible features of his in the dim the almost glowing red irises and the white markings creating a vague outline of some animal face. Dramatic asshole, as usual.

"Show me."

The tone of authority and ownership demanding obedience - the order itself - coming from anyone else but the man who one way or another did own everything that made him, would have Jack snarling and pouncing whoever dared to speak to him like that. Hearing it from Gabe, though...

"Not even 'hi, how are you' or 'greetings, mortal'?"

Jack rolls his eyes, stripping down completely out of his clothes, leaving them lying on the plush carpet as Gabriel comes closer. Always smelling faintly of the deep ocean, or rather, of how Jack would imagine it to smell if it did.

Fingers dig around the edges of the sleeves on his shoulders, feeling the joints underneath, moving down to repeat the same around his hips. Synthskin sends confusing signals, not quite the pain yet, and a pinch of irritation.

"Looks fine."

"Will you tell me how you got your hands on last generation's milspec?" Gabriel ignores the question - no acknowledgment of it being asked even - as he's wont to do. Instead, he picks up a pillbox from the dresser. "I still got them."

"I know. You're dosing too low."

"Orgasm in a pill seems a bit too convenient." Jack massages the joint of his shoulder, moving to the bedroom. The carpet, probably soft on any other occasion, scratches his soles. "And a bit awkward."

"A fortunate coincidence of it interacting with your physiology."

"Yeah, coincidence. You're sure it's not another leash to keep me on?"

"If it were, you wouldn't be able to skip a dose. I'd make sure of it."

"I'm pulling your leg. I rather suspect you wouldn't do that, or would you?" Jack climbs the bed and props himself on the pillows - eyes focused on the single pill held between Gabriel's fingers, tracking it as he puts it in his mouth advancing - crawling over the covers, and Jack himself, with the grace of a predator playfully stalking a prey he knows cannot flee, the kill only a formality decided beforehand.

Drowning, always drowning in those eyes, black sclera and red irises blurring together into one, always looking too deep into him until he feels they don’t see him at all, his tongue brushing against sharp pointed teeth in an open-mouthed kiss, electricity traveling back and forth the nerves of phantom limbs with the speed of light coming to stop in a single burst leaving him breathless and shaking under Gabriel.

"Dutiful boy. You deserve a prize."

Jack chuckles at the first trace of any emotion in Gabriel's voice. The possessiveness is never truly gone, it's as much an integral part of him as are his looks, but there's a note of fondness giving Jack the incontestable impulse to almost preen: lower his lashes and incline back his head, hand sliding along dark red lines on Gabriel's arm.

"She's going to touch up off this."

"Are you worried about your privacy?"

"I'm used to having none with her. That was," he inhales sharply, feeling the bite on his collarbone, "for your benefit. I can see now you don't mind."

"I do not."

Jack merely snorts, rolling over and promising himself again to figure out Gabriel's trick with the clothes, there one moment and gone in the next, probably magic, but if he ever had any spark himself it was long lost with all the work done on him since the accident. Blunt as a troll's fist, this one.

Not that he has the ability to dwell on it while getting drilled into the mattress.

Later, the deep throbbing bites on his back, shoulders, and neck almost manage to take his mind off the itching under the sleeves, the kind anything but scratching the skin off whole does nothing for. The bites, they should bother him more but feel only right, as does the thumb following the line of his spine, up and down each bump, ceaseless, building the pressure and then letting go. Jack has to wonder as he drifts off if it's one of those times Gabriel will stay until he wakes.

He does. Looking with the usual neutral expression when Jack gulps for the air, the lingering vague memory of drowning but not sinking while something gorges itself on his flesh with little bites tearing him apart fading slowly.

"Lungs are still giving you problems."

Bathed in the sunlight, Gabriel looks as striking as in the darkness - minutely less dangerous now, however surface and not representative of his true nature the impression is. Regal. Focused on the multitude of holoscreens floating in the air before him.

"No. Not really."

"You were choking."

"Only a bit." Jack stretches, still feeling relatively boneless and exhausted, sticky with perspiration, too tired yet to consider the shower to be a genuine need right now. He slips off the bed only to retrieve the wrapped meat from the pile of discarded clothes in the other room and climbs right back into it.

"It's almost raw," Gabriel mentions when Jack's well into a third of his snack.

"Yeah. I'm finding it's not that bad at all, all things considered. Are you going to comment on my obviously poor dietary choices?"

"No. I'm rather curious about why would you consume it raw." A note of amusement, rare as it is, floats in Gabriel's voice. Jack shrugs.

"Started as a fucked up way to get closer and understand them better, and it grew on me. Not like I'm doing it a lot, wanted to treat myself tonight. Want some?"

To his astonishment, it does take Gabriel's attention away from the screens, as if he's considering the offer seriously - not that Jack would mind - and he leans in, hand trailing on Jack's shoulder for a moment and coming away with blood on the fingertips. Which he licks off.

One of the bites must’ve opened.

"No."

"Shit," Jack chuckles, pulling knees closer to his chest, resting his arms on them, just looking. "Could you just tell me what you are?"

"No. Probably never will."

"Suit yourself then, Knife-ears."

Soon afterward, Gabriel disappears in the bathroom and emerges back fully clothed, the suit so plain and unassuming it has to be worth its weight in diamonds, at least - and leaves without a word. Nothing about it bothers Jack, really, that's the only way he has ever known him to be: someone who's either rich or influential enough to never have had to conform to any social standards so they're like an alien concept to him. If anything, it tickles Jack's ego, the fact Gabriel spends both money and time on him regardless of his inscrutable reasons for it. And even if the time is scarce, the money comes in sums so high Jack’s not going to bother trying to figure the specific amounts out.

With a sigh, Jack plugs into his own pad, trying to ignore momentary vertigo any kind of connection, even the shallow one, gives him - waiting for Sombra to get to him. If she wanted anything from him, she always found him the second he jacked in.

The mental equivalent of a giggle has him rolling his eyes.

"You can say it."

"Boy, did you get screwed silly."

"I feel like I got some of my brain matter fucked out, that one's a freebie."

"What the hell are you eating now? Feedback from your tastebuds is giving me shivers."

"You too?" He bites off another chunk.

"What are you eating?" Sombra repeats, the tone akin to the one used towards a pet that definitely got into trash or picked up something suspect on the way.

"Almost raw meat."

"Interesting," she says after a pause. "Anyway, I'm done."

Jack flexes the free hand, clenching and unclenching his fist a few times.

"Not seeing any difference."

"You shouldn't because I know how to do my job. Also uploaded keys to the blocks, the data on the job, and you've got incoming charter on the roof in five hours."

"So I do have time for a bath then," he hums, smiling.

"Knock yourself out, I'm leaving you alone, you get weird in water."

"Thanks, Som."

"No biggie." Her presence warms up before blinking out, leaving Jack to sort through everything she's left behind both in, and on the pad. Processing plant, the floor plans from several flybys, one drone shot down by a spirit, two points of entrance, Genji on the spot, Jesse and him coming from the water with a few hours to spare, full carnage.

Jack smirks, pulling out the plug. Just how he likes it. He moves to the bathroom, the alarm set for two hours.

The bathtub is nothing spectacular, at best a tight fit for more than two people - still a fancy one with an array of controls barely anyone bothers to use. He picks the temperature and plays a bit with oxygenation and flow. Jack lowers himself into the water slowly, the cold playing havoc on the still sensitive synthskin. The nonexistent heat regulation of milspec freezes his joints with pain. All par for the course as he exhales before submerging in full.

And then, he breathes the water in.

The surface breaks with the remnants of the air pushed from his lungs. It's a poor man's substitute for the real thing but the pressure and the dampened hum of the surroundings, however dissimilar to a swim in the ocean, bring his mind some respite.

Running down the pier barefooted with the warmth of the sun on his back - jumping - the whiplash of the impact - diving deep, to look back from below at the light glimmering on the waves, the rays reaching for him - the hands reaching for him from the depths and pulling down.

With the sound of the alarm, Jack jolts up to a sitting position, coughing out the water. Another bout gets rid of the rest of it from the lungs, and he changes the temperature. The bath heats almost immediately.

The dream changes, but the ending remains always the same.

Head leaning against the rim of the tub, before properly washing, he spends minutes motionless except for the occasional shiver until his core warms up. Remaining two hours Jack idles away eating a late breakfast and not really watching some show on the holo while sprawled in the bed still smelling of sex.

Moving to the pad grants him some suspicious looks he can't fault people for because he does stick out here in his clothes like a sore thumb - and then surprise as his bracelet lets him pass through the gate and into the waiting Osprey with rotors running hot. A waste to use the craft fitted for carrying almost forty personnel merely for him, but he's not the one paying. At least, there's room enough to stretch his legs and to think very hard on how much he's unafraid of flying, his stomach doing backflips as it takes off.

The fact the crash might have been involved had occurred to him long ago.

Fifteen minutes in, Jack gives up and reaches out to Sombra, for which she ridicules him mercilessly but keeps him company. Getting angry helps to take his mind off of how fucking terrified he is. Even if he could run fucking laps inside the cabin, the changing tilt reminds him he's in the air, and the moment Osprey touches down three hours later, Jack's out like there's a pack of devil rats on his heels, relieved to have solid ground back under his feet.

Jesse, holding his hat down against the draft waves at him. The coyote stitched on his serape seems to stretch and yawn with the fabric moving, probably does so in truth, but Jack can never tell.

"Lúcio's finishing on the sub, we're going to drink tonight, coming too?"

Jack looks to the harbor and shakes his head.

"Not this time. I'll check the gear and maybe go for the swim."

"Dude, no, not in this water, trust me. Too much industrial, and many critters out here. Best case, you'd break out in boils after a dip."

"Can't be that bad."

"Well, Lúcio says that a pyramid had been hit hard some months back, there's been some runoff and an uptick in critters. Really want to chance it with whatever's in the water now?"

"Guess not." Jack shrugs, walking away from the powered down craft towards the only building on the pier.

"So how's about that drink?" The coyote on the red cloth sits down and scratches its ear. If he were to associate Jesse with any other spirit than it, he would be hard-pressed to find anything fitting.

"Pass. Just don't get in trouble with the locals. Or old pals."

"Hey, don't bring up my stalker vampire ex, the next time I see 'er, I have a stake with her name on it." Jesse throws his hands into the air, pausing in the doorway, letting Jack pass him.

"You know it doesn't work on her."

"It will slow her down."

"If you manage to stake anything vital."

"Oh, I will, because this," Jesse points to himself with a wide smile, "is absolutely irresistible to her."

Jack laughs, eyeing the crates set up inside.

"Yeah, there's no accounting for taste."

"Dude, harsh. Anyway, that's yours."

"Everything's in here?"

"I wouldn't know, I try not to touch your shit," Jesse gives an exasperated sigh while digging in his pockets for a cigar, the coyote snapping at it as he puts it between his lips. "Well, see you in the morning, dude," he adds before turning around. Jack nods, moving his attention to the boxes and working his way through their contents.

The story behind the coyote Jesse tells is as outlandish as the man himself, and a question for the ages of how he wasn't rad-insane or sporting another head. Yet.

In the German wasteland (the only place on earth one could be a real cowboy anymore, Jesse insisted), drunk off two shit beers because his ex fed off him earlier, and high on some local shrooms, staring at the dying campfire, the coyote came to him and took him on the trip. Jack would gladly chalk it up to alcohol, hallucinogenics, radiation, and exsanguination, all working in synergy - if not for the hard fact the coyote itself was very real, and as helpful as it turned out to be an impediment, or a bother, the other half of the time.

Methodically, Jack picks out the gear - the rest going back to their crates - and then he double-checks the selection, looking for any identifiable problems and defects. When he's finished and satisfied, it's well into the wee morning hours. He drags a random deck chair to the end of the pier and lays down in it. The city, as small as it is comparable to the majority on the coast, doesn't sleep - there is no escaping the lights and the sounds - but in his chosen spot overlooking more water than the land he can doze off.

If either Jesse or Lúcio notices him gasping for breath as they finish loading the sub, they don't mention it.

"I'm not hauling your shit," Jesse gestures to the container Jack left outside, by his chair.

"Hi, man," Lúcio smiles. "Also, I dig your new set, what's the specs?"

"You'd have to ask Sombra for technicalities, I'm only using them." Jack stretches, there's a kink below his left shoulder blade he tries to work out by rolling it. Almost manages to, too.

"Cool, will do. By the way, he tried to throw hands only once."

"Dude. Squeal much?"

"It's called being the responsible one," Lúcio shrugs and Jesse groans in response, muttering something sounding suspiciously like 'don't need a chaperone'.

"Sub's all ready?"

"She's right up purring now, the lady she is." Lúcio's eyes light up. "Nothing left to squeeze out."

"I'll hold you up to it." Jack gets up and drags the container to the sub, the box grating on the concrete, and brings it into the cabin, pushing it behind the seats.

"Oh, man, do that, love to see the data after you push her."

"Will do on the way back. Jesse, inside."

"That wasn't me sleeping when me and Lúcio were breaking our backs," Jesse snarks sliding into the pilot's seat, knowing well Jack's impatience and what they will use the spare time for. He doesn't mind, usually.

"Good hunting, guys." Lúcio mock-salutes as the hatch seals.

Before they're out of the harbor and submerged completely, Jack's out of his clothes, save for the boxers. Despite the sub being state-of-the art, with two people in it gets hot inside in less than an hour.

He starts on the sleeves, peeling them off slowly.

The synthskin underneath is still oversensitive, but no longer tries to overload his brain with conflicting or extreme stimuli. It just feels like blanched with boiling water and any negligible otherwise touch almost painfully tickles.

"Kinda creepy, like a snake's molt."

"Note to self, I look better with my skin falling off my frame."

"Hey, I'm just stating the bare facts. Fuck, ew!" Jesse leans away to evade the sleeve Jack waves in his direction. "Dude. No. That's uncalled for. I'm driving, I could crash us."

"Into what?"

"I'd find something!" It's either a threat, a promise, or a commentary on the nature of Karma.

"Out of the two of us, I'm the one who can breathe underwater, so..." Jack lets his voice hang as he reaches for the pillbox he left on the shelf earlier. It's a short debate if he should take one because even if he could take them as he felt like otherwise, risking going into implant rejection on the job was far from reasonable. As soon as the aftershocks fade, Jack leans back into the seat, lazily watching the water on the screen.

"And that's also creepy as fuck," Jesse comments, sounding a bit more somber. "You look like you just got your dick sucked off, every time."

"Honestly? Feels like it, every time."

"And you know what makes it even fucking creepier?"

"You're going to tell me and I can't stop it."

"Because this shit looks goddamn miraculous and I may have helped myself to some," Jesse begins, waving one arm in the air and Jack mutters that of course Jesse fucking did, "and they fucking don't work. And you know what's in them?"

"Not that interested as long as they work."

"It's people, dude."

Jack sends him a blase look.

"And you ate it."

"Yeah, but I didn't go looking like I creamed my pants after that."

"It's for implant rejection, so it only makes sense it has reconfigured genetic material in it. Also, do not eat my drugs, it's people."

Jesse grimaces.

"Dude, you made it sound weird."

"I made you getting into my stash of pharmaceutical drugs you personally can't get high off sound weird?"

"Dude, it's even weirder now. How do you do it?"

"What?" Jack chuckles. "You mean, use my brain, sometimes?"

Jesse mutters some expletive under his breath and Jack closes his eyes leaving it without comment as the whole chat makes him revisit more or less cloudy memories of the first months he's spent either half-conscious because of pain, or half-conscious because of drugs and pain.

At least, until the pill, and the moment when the pain finally went below the...

"Amida Bongo Christ Almighty!" Jack turns immediately at the sound of the genuine panic in the voice to see Jesse try to become one with his seat, pushing back with his feet against the floor, pointing at the screen where a shadow in the water comes into focus, massive, gliding with deliberation. "Of all the fucking things to run into, the Sea-Fucking-Dragon... we're all gonna die."

Jack kills the engine in his stead and swipes at the screen, focusing the image. He can't deny his own heart is hammering in his chest when he lets out the sigh of slight relief while trying to ignore Jesse's doom-saying.

"It's not her."

"What?"

"It's not her. Doesn't look like her, and it's much bigger."

"That's supposed to help us exactly how!?"

"Take her five hundred to the left," Jack, already climbing over the back of his seat and almost falling in a hapless heap on the container in the process, barks at him. "I'm going out."

"Are you fucking serious, dude? Of-fucking-course, you are!"

"Chance like this isn't going to repeat itself!"

"A chance to get fucking eaten by a dragon?"

"That too!" Jack locks the airlock behind himself and fits the propulsion module as it fills with water. There's no time to wait for the slow pressurization. When there's no air left inside, he forces the emergency release, pulling himself to the outside, and pushes away from the body of the sub.

"Dude." Jesse, switched to the comms, sounds appalled compared to the earlier panic, which is considerably better for the situation. "Did you just lewd a dragon?"

"Maybe possibly." Jack smiles, cutting across at an angle. "Remember, five hundred, match speed, if I do get eaten, go silent and wait, rendezvous with Genji, do the site rep, and then decide what you do."

"You're literally the last person who should give orders."

"Next to last. You're even less qualified."

"True what they say, the truth hurts."

The dragon is massive, its form much more suited to the open ocean than what footage of Sea Dragon there is shows of her. He's yet too far to discern if it has limbs or only the fins. It moves with a misleading slow grace, the powerful twists of the wide tail propelling it forward. Getting caught in the vortex of the currents pushed with each beat could be - is - deathly dangerous.

Smaller shapes swim with it, congregating around the middle part of its body.

At first, Jack takes them for merrows, they're known to attach themselves to big predators and form codependent relationships, but it's the perspective lying to him. They're bigger, more agile, gleam occasionally with reflective scales. A brood of young, maybe? If yes, the endeavor is even more foolish than in the beginning, but even that won’t deter him from undertaking it.

Two of the smaller creatures break away from the formation as he gets closer and approach, their tails swishing wildly in the water. Mermaids. Mermaids traveling in a pack with a dragon. Not something he had expected.

They're coming both from the above and the below, a male and an older female, judging by the scars and veils, still colorful but ripped and missing pieces. It's hard to keep up with their rapid movements. Jack curls his hands and legs to his body as they circle him.

"Please, don't bite," he tells them. "There's almost no meat and you will probably break your teeth on me."

The mermaids observe him warily. The female chirps once and turns back, the male following in her tow. She's green and yellow, the pattern reminiscent of the stripes on a perch or other fish known to thrive in greenery. When no light catches on her scales she blends with the deep green agate hue of the water, but Jack wonders if she's maybe better suited to sargassum forests. Her partner, on the other hand, with his solid canary yellow, stands out like a sore thumb - at least until both of them gain distance and rejoin the group amid some agitation from the closest mermaids, the reactions playing out like a change of direction in a school of fish.

It's his first close encounter with live mermaids since the accident, and he has been judged as neither a threat nor a meal. In this moment, Jack feels some of the rush bleed away, allowing him to slip into simple sensations, focus on them, and appreciate them: the steady pressure of water against every inch of his skin, the additional tension in his scalp when his hair, however short, drag with each movement, the cold seeping into him from the inside, the weightlessness - even if he knows his limbs would pull him much further down.

The ocean is far from silent - never silent - full of sounds he can hear with his ears, and the ones he cannot - he hears with his whole body - the symphony of the dulled hum of static and single notes played on different instruments, not unlike the sounds of traffic in its structure.

His eyes drift back to the dragon.

It's foolish. It's not borderline suicidal, it's just plain old suicidal. And he won't let a moment like this slip like air between his fingers.

Hand on the controls of the drive, Jack resumes the approach.

The dragon looms closer, its body at least thirty meters long from the tip to the tail, probably more. He can now see its limbs tucked close to the underbelly - the fins reminiscent of underdeveloped wings.

He swims parallel to its head, advancing.

Bone-like white crest covers its front. The black scales, even if they seem to have an inner shine to them, appear to consume the light voraciously. The dark red lines streaking along the sides twist and mold with each move of the powerful muscles hidden underneath.

Jack's heart does not fit into his chest, so hard it hammers against his ribs from the inside - with fear, with excitement, with awe - and that's before the low rumble resonates within him as the dragon opens its eyes, one after another, five of them on the side he's facing - each an abyss of darkness ringed with glowing red slowly focusing on him: an insignificant speck in comparison.

"God. You're beautiful."

No. It was a worthless descriptor when applied to the apex predator wrought with raw power both physical and not.

Sublime.

The dragon disregards him - its eyes swivel to look forward - he cannot fathom expecting to keep such creature's interest for longer than this. But it's also an invitation, he's considered to be harmless, hence nothing to bother with, and Jack slows slightly while swimming up. Above its bulk, he notices some mermaids just clinging to the body, clawed fingers curled around the edges of the scales. Stupid, again, but he is going to try the same: hitch a ride on a dragon.

The thought is intoxicating, sends his mind reeling with unsuppressed glee.

He dives forward, his fingertips brush the hard surface - with caution he digs his fingers underneath the scale - the other palm he lays flat against it as the propulsion module switches off.

Jack pulls himself closer against the current, that rush of underwater wind. Never has he wished for his limbs back more than now, to touch and feel with his real skin, not even when the bones that aren't his anymore burn with that deep ache that sends all the thoughts skittering away with no control. Instead, he pulls flush against its body, forehead pressed into the scales, each contraction of the muscle below them felt intimately.

At the moment, he doesn't count time, not until another rumble, one he feels against his skin, makes him realize almost two hours have passed.

He looks back to see the mermaids otherwise swimming try to grab onto scales as it continues. In the front, what he took for vestigial wings - the fins - slowly unfold to reveal skeletal-like frame filled in with dark ethereal filigree straining on the currents.

It's a profound kind of sadness Jack feels loosening his grip. Drifting - falling - sinking - away.

The wings spread and angle. The dragon's back winds up like a spring.

Then it soars underwater, deep in the ocean, each beat of the wings carrying it further away into darkness.

The rush of water pushed by the dragon sends him spinning. Jack instinctively curls his limbs to his core to wait it out, losing all sense of direction in resulting vertigo. When it stops, it takes him a while to orient himself, the leviathan nowhere to be seen anymore.

"Jesse, it's safe to approach. Can you get to my signal because I'm fucking lost?"

"I see you," the response comes with a delay. "Coming from your general six. Dude, do you know how much is the footage worth?"

"It's worthless." Jack turns around with a few kicks.

"All would kill..."

"You can't put a price on it, it will put a price on your life." He can see the incoming lights blinking for his benefit as they draw near. "And you want to put out there a proof of a dragon that had remained away from the public knowledge until now?"

"Fair, even I'm not that stupid. I think. With the way you put it."

Jack swims towards the sub and grabs one of the railings, pulling himself towards the airlock. Minutes later, he climbs into his seat, dripping water everywhere.

"Got what you wanted outta that one? Besides getting eaten?"

"I think I've found god," Jack smiles, genuinely. It's a memory he's going to treasure, one unlikely to be eclipsed by any other in the foreseeable future.

"You going to be one of them dragon-worshipping freaks? I've heard things, and none good, I say."

"Not like that."

"So," Jesse turns his head to look at him. "You want to dick down a dragon."

"When you get down to it," Jack starts carefully, eyeing Jesse with a certain degree of suspicion, "yeah, basically."

"Heard about that one club you can meet one, violet eyes and..."

"I don't want to dick down a dragon, I want to dick down this one."

"Okay. It's important to have goals in one's life. I'm not judging."

It's at this point that something about a much earlier conversation occurs to Jack and he stills before covering his eyes with his palm.

"Jesse?"

"Mhm?"

"When you said you have a stake with her name on it... Did you mean your dick?"

Jesse raises his eyebrows, makes finger-guns with his hands, and goes for a pithy imitation of 'badum-tss' sound.

"You fucking moron." And Jack can only laugh.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It has anime action sequences. Also, poor life choices on account of the several characters. I tried. It turned into a monster.

The whole inside of the sub stinks of the cigar smoke.

The ventilation system manages to get rid of the smoke itself, but the reek remains. Jack would call bullshit on Jesse's insistence it's a vital part of the ritual - the justification itself a steaming load of bullcrap.

Point is, even if he's pretty sure that's the fact, he won't, because he doesn't know enough about the subject to not make a fool out of himself. He finishes fitting the exo jacket and does a cursory check of its mobility and the armor plates layered over it.

The next is the pistol and the rifle, both at full capacity, unlikely he will end up needing another power unit for either of them. The hip pack holds eleven demo charges and the pad, Jack threads the cable with the plug under the armor and leaves it hanging for now.

"Much longer?"

"Nah, about finished," Jesse answers without opening his eyes and takes another deep drag of his cigar. Seeing this, Jack feels almost nauseated in his stead.

The visor clicks neatly into the sockets of the frame, integrated jack connecting immediately. He plugs the pad cable into the remaining port. The tactical overlay reloads, feeding him new data.

"Som, want to ride tonight?"

"No, thanks, I'll go through the tac, I have an idea what we'll find and I'd prefer not being flooded by your sensory output."

"I'm feeling a bit bloodthirsty, anyway."

"Don't you always." Sombra flashes his display in response. In time for Jesse to turn around in the chair as the coyote fades back into existence on the serape.

"And done. We're in the clear from this side. I have the entire array down to a pat."

"No good if anyone with a moderately adequate sense of smell can, and will, smell you downwind." Jack rolls his eyes while putting the face mask on.

"All part of the process."

"Sure. Not dragging your sorry ass back."

"Dude, it's going to be the other way around."

"Even if," Jack grabs the rim of the hatchway and pulls himself up, bracing against the railing and leaning back inside, "it will be your fault alone."

"There's a ladder for a reason, dude, you don't need to show off yet." Jesse hands him the drone he sets off flying right away. The thing veers away and gains the altitude with a subtle whizz of its rotors. Sombra will keep it at a distance until Jesse does his thing.

"See if I pull you up now. Genji?"

"Waiting for the signal." The reply comes on the spot, the voice metallic even through the comms.

Jack jumps off the sub, landing softly on the shore. The wall is at least four meters tall, four and twenty according to the display's measurements. His fingers dig into the concrete as he scales it - feels like nothing - the boots keep his feet anchored to the surface. On the top, he surveys the area. No-one is standing guard, probably too lazy and too comfortable with the alarms set up, the only thing to worry about another gang or triad wanting to move into their turf as unlikely as it would be considering the current power balance. But then, with the worth of one facility and the specialists in the trade involved, probably everyone gets a piece of this pie to not upset the supply chain.

Jack lets down the rope, waiting for Jesse to clip it to his harness before he pulls him up.

"You need some kind of diet."

"You're the only one complaining. There's just a lot of me to go around. Love handles are a thing, you know?" Jesse wheezes, finally joining him on the wall. "Thatta way," he points to the closest building. "Cover me while I negotiate."

"Don't die on the way."

"You're just jealous I got some healthy fat on me."

"The only person insisting it's sexy is your recurring ex, and that's because it gives you higher blood volume."

"Wait, dude, seriously?" Jesse looks up from the spot Jack let him down.

"No idea. I'm making it up as I go."

"Well, shit, you really had me consider dieting for a sec there."

"Should've kept the charade up." Jack lies down on his side at the top of the wall, the rifle held precariously with no additional support. Its matte coating disperses the light. "I have fov. Go."

"You expect me to run?" Jesse snarks holding down his hat - incidentally running - stopping a few steps from the building, more a shed than anything else.

"Kind of." Jack centers the reticle on him, noticing the coyote is gone, again. Which doesn't bode well. "Where's the friend?"

"Working, shush!"

Jesse plops down, cross-legged, the prosthetic hand in his lap, the other holding something close to his chest - probably one of his amulets - and Jack briefly entertains the thought of shooting the stupid hat off his head just to make a point. In truth, keeping half his attention on Jesse allows for a smooth feed of environmental data from the surroundings, and if anything goes wrong, though magic, the spirits usually go down well enough when treated with sufficient amounts of very mundane munitions. His are several grades above that.

"The fuck is it...?"

The spirit forming out of the wall in front of Jesse looks nothing like any other he had ever seen before, standing as tall as a troll, a mass of mangled flesh and fur sloughing off its skeletal frame in gag-inducing half-liquid scraps. The half of whatever is supposed to cover its maw is missing, showing off the strange shape of the skull and the frankly terrifying fangs from between which bubbling drool dangles.

It roars soundlessly and Jesse shudders, breaking the first amulet.

The spirit moves forward, sluggishly, against the invisible force pushing it back. Jack puts his finger on the trigger, wondering if he'll even notice the entire thing going south fast enough. If he doesn't, well, Jesse's in scalding water.

Jesse discards remnants of another focus.

The moment Jack's half a mind to light the ugly motherfucker up, a flash of grayish-brown jumps to the spirit's back. The coyote sinks its teeth into the spirit's nape and closes its jaws, twisting. Jack swears there's some kind of cracking sound that's not a sound at all. The rest of the rotting flesh dissipates and the bones burn before following suit.

"Okay, done," Jesse spits to the side, disgust clear in his tone. "All were bound to this one."

"Jesus. What was that?"

"Bad Ainu spirit, powerful," the answer is surprisingly somber. "Feral."

"Tells me nothing." Jack slips off the wall, the drone navigating overhead filling in the gaps in the tactical overlay with new data, finding and pinpointing heat signatures.

"Corrupted bear spirit, someone brought it inland. Nasty stuff, dude." Jesse pats the coyote. Predictably, it snaps at his hand, and he pulls it back with a quiet curse - staring the coyote down until it turns and walks away, unbothered. "Anyway, the one who set it up is gonna feel it, but the further away they are, finding out what that was will take longer."

"No change of movement patterns so far. Genji, take over 'Love Handles' here," Jack snickers at the indignant look Jesse directs at him. Genji confirms, his marker shifting on the display. "I'm moving along."

He follows by the wall, the sparse lamps providing enough contrast to shadow to have him blend with the surroundings. The complex itself - if it even could be called such - was not built with defensibility in mind, but rather adapted for the utility away from the prying eyes. It had to be a port before, maybe even a regular fishing dock, the layout betrays it with the repurposed boat sheds corroding in the sea air - the wall ending abruptly obviously there to protect from the wind and the waves coming in from the side.

Jack departs the relative safety of the wall towards two vehicles parked sideways in relation to the main building where the heat signatures congregate. One is an armored personnel transport, the escort most probably, the other a massive truck with a refrigerator. He takes two charges out of the hip pack and changes the frequency on both of them. The first one goes under the truck, just behind the join with the cabin, the second under the transport. All while keeping his attention on the lone signature exiting the building.

Jack clips the rifle to his back, focusing on the hostile. A smoke break, judging by the movements. Slowly shifting his weight, Jack moves into the position, tracking the motions of the enemy. The tac display flicks between the straight visual feed and the heat map.

Ten meters, turning away from him.

The smell on the air is stronger this close to the building; the mixture of the toxins in the blood is palatable on his tongue here, kicks off his fight-or-flight instinct and the adrenaline floods his system. And for Jack, it's always fight, never flight. The first limiter is off, an overkill, but he doesn't care.

He springs from behind the transport - jumping as the hostile is turning - left palm grabbing their forehead, right fist coming to stop in their nape with a crunch.

His feet hit the ground in front of them and he shoulders the weight, lowering the soon to be a corpse man down. The dropped cigarette still smokes. With a smile, Jack puts one explosive in front of the wildly moving eyes.

"Damn, that's cold even for you," Sombra whistles.

"I'm in a bit of a mood." Jack pulls the rifle into his hands and puts his back to the wall. "That's Arasaka gear."

"Adding their chatter to the monitored."

The display flickers, overlaying structural scan on the tac. Jack glances at the sky - the drone is nowhere to be seen. As it should be.

Genji and Jesse both catch up, sheltered by the vehicles.

"Genji, upper floor. 'Love Handles', find somewhere else, demos underneath."

"Where?" Jesse's heat signature unmistakably turns around with one arm outstretched.

"Go for the fridge. Two inside." Jack takes a deep breath and turns, walking inside with the rifle braced against his shoulder, trying to not be too quiet about it, as if he's the unlucky guy outside.

Five in the room past the corridor, visibly relaxed - four at the table, one lying down. Three on the level up.

"Genji."

The command is followed by a crash above and a scream. Jack falls into a crouch as soon as he gains the visual on the four hostiles turning to the metal staircase on the other side of the room.

The recoil on each shot is cushioned by the exo jacket. Mostly.

On the tac, the fifth one is scrambling in the corner to get up. One from the upper floor gets halfway down the stairs before Genji is on him, pushing him down to the ground, his katana sliding in easily at an angle between the shoulder blades. Jack rushes inside the room - flipping his own direction with a foot planted in the floor past the doorframe - the butt of the rifle slightly off balance as he fires. This one, he's going to feel in the morning.

The plasma projectile rips the meat off the target's throat.

Genji nods once, rising. He flicks the blood off the blade.

"See if you find any paper trail, I'm going..." There's the unmistakable sound of Jesse's revolver going off in the distance. Jack's not worried, not really, he had seen this thing vaporize someone's midriff once.

He shrugs and throws two charges at the opposite walls of the room, down to six now, and backtracks outside, leaving Genji to go through anything that may be in the open.

"Jesse?"

"One's inside."

"There's no-one inside."

Unless... The cold room. Someone went into the freezer. One big heatsink on the tac. Anyone outside would show.

Jesse is leaning against the corrugated metal, revolver in hand, few paces away from the body lying face-down - unarmored, precise shot to the back that blew out half of the chest on the way out, judging by the spray.

"Follow. Som, can you...?" Before he finishes, the drone does a dive fly-by by the entrance, returning to the sky after.

"Clear. Closed shut."

Jack shoulders the rifle. The smell of blood and meat is stronger here, will be worse inside - something about it always sets him off. The building's layout is as simple as it gets: built around the freezer block with a small makeshift separate space to the side to provide for temporary living arrangements.

"Jesse, check it out." Jack walks to the freezer's door. The lock panel shines with glaring red. He moves aside to let the drone pass - unholsters the pistol as Sombra connects to the door's interface. They open with a quiet hiss, expelling clouds of frigid air.

The smell is horrible, hooks into his brain. The urge to kill something - someone - anything - is unequivocal.

"Clear."

Jack rounds the doorframe, pistol at the ready. Rows of tables, singular iceboxes, all the equipment needed for the processing.

"At least a dozen..." The tails being bled in the beginning stage hang from the ceiling in the back. One sways minisculely. "Fifteen."

With deliberate slowness, Jack makes his way towards it - focused on the back area, cursorily glancing at the compact cooling units - nothing unexpected: hands, organs, two heads probably to be sold as centerpieces, all partially treated already.

"Found you."

A bit of a shoe is poking from behind one table. He smiles. The man flinches with his whole body when he sees him. Any other place, any other situation, Jack would consider him a non-combatant unless otherwise provoked into action. But here, surrounded by all the evidence...

He wants - needs - to kill something.

He barely listens to the jumble of the language he doesn't understand, could ask Sombra for a precise translation, but he doesn't care. She provides some, anyway.

"Says they were forced to."

"He's lying."

"No shit," Sombra chuckles.

For a brief moment, Jack considers his options. In the end, he pulls the trigger. The pistol has a substantially lower yield than the rifle - it still very well could dislocate the joints of someone unaugmented - and a limited use against heavily armored targets. Against anyone unarmored, it kills as well as anything else, leaving behind burnt gore.

The smell of seared meat, keratin, and fat does nothing to hide the odor of the toxins from the remains of dead mermaids.

"We have a transport incoming," Sombra pulls the drone from the freezer. "Nine minutes for a clear exit."

"Jesse, Genji, grab what you have and clear out." Jack listens for the confirmations while deploying the remaining charges inside the cold room. He wants everything in here vaporized, with no exceptions.

"Five minutes."

"I know, Som, you put the clock on the tac."

When outside, Jack breaks into a sprint - there isn't a reason to hurry that much but the exertion helps to work the adrenaline out and push the smell from his lungs. He scales the wall and jumps over it.

"Three minutes," Sombra speaks, the tone making him think she might be working now on her nails - ridiculous, but he can't help a chuckle at the image it provokes.

"I know." Jack pauses on the top of the sub to grab the drone and pass it below before he slides inside into his chair. He puts the rifle braced between his legs and sinks forward, bending his knees. "Floor it, 'Love Handles'."

Jesse does, muttering something along the lines 'I see this is what we're doing now' as Jack digs the pad from the pouch - waits a moment before keying in the frequency. The sub shudders, punched by the crump following the demo charges going off on the surface, and just like this, it's time to crash.

"It all reeks of your shit cigars."

Jack does a double-take, looking above the back of his chair at Genji sprawled over the boxes. Genji, who shouldn't be here with them.

"It's good tobacco and they're expensive!"

"I'm bred and born Yakuza, I know my quality drugs."

"Genji," Jack begins carefully, "You left your ride there?"

"No. I walked."

"You... what?"

"Walked."

It's beyond ridiculous.

"How...?"

"Thirty-two hours, to be exact," Genji interrupts the question Jack's been formulating. "A pleasant hike."

Jack decides he's not going to question it anymore. The only downside is he will have to listen to them bicker about meaningless drivel for hours. The other hindrance being the obvious fact he has to peel the armor and the exo off in the front instead of in the back, behind the seats. He manages.

The third unobvious drawback: with three people more-or-less breathing, the temperature rises to levels comparable with a sauna.

State-of-the-art, his ass.

The riveting bickering Jack can tune out as the combat high fades and his system goes into the post-adrenaline crash, leaving him slightly shaking and nauseous - tired and heavy - drifting in and out of bouts of light sleep. When they finally arrive, both he and Jesse look like boiled rats while Genji is no worse for the wear.

It makes Jack think how much - and if anything - is left of Genji himself, with the work he had done on him easily exceeding whatever Jack had, and Jack himself is teetering on the edge. And if Genji runs off a BTL, it's not his fucking business, so he had never asked, and neither had he asked about why - and how - nothing past the part of his head and the upper chest buried in the metal remains. They aren't both that much different, after all.

But that aside, he has about enough energy left in him to slap McCree's stomach flab - ignoring the smirking 'you're only doing it 'cos you're green with envy' comment as it wobbles - and stumble to the temporary bunk, burying himself under the flimsy covers. If anyone's going to bitch about him not helping with the unloading, they can bitch about it later, preferably tomorrow, and, anyway, he's been the one doing most of the work, so they can suck it.

He wakes up too cold, with the shoulder bruised and giving him hell.

Going by the light, it's late afternoon. His gear is laid out on the tables, as is the carry-on he had left before the departure. Jack considers a swim against Jesse's earlier advice, but a spiny back that flashes him in the distance finally dissuades him from the idea. Pity. Quick shower it is.

The rest of the evening he spends putting away the equipment back in the containers first, later scanning the data for Sombra while eating.

"The security was lazy and too lax, they had to have been operating there long enough to grow complacent."

"I'm not so sure about it. From what I've seen," Sombra murmurs, "they might have bet too much on the magic, it was good."

"According to Jesse." Jack pauses with the fork full of the awful reheated mush when she ‘ohs’ suddenly. "What?"

"I think we've hit the jackpot."

"Elaborate?"

"With a bit of luck and time, with this info, I think I might be able to pinpoint the fleet that has been supplying this plant, among the others. We hadn't found one of those in two years."

"Full-on naval run? Fun."

"Trying to appear disinterested? I know you secretly got a boner."

"You know me so well," Jack laughs. "By the way, where are you now?"

"Frisco. You'd like it here, half the time feels like you're breathing water because of the fog."

"My kind of city."

"The views aren't bad either. Have fun tonight once in your life, okay?"

"Why would I...?"

"Trust me."

Her thoughts fade, leaving him perplexed as to their meaning. At least until Jesse barges in some fifteen minutes later.

"We're going drinking, dude, and I don't take no for an answer."

"No."

"Oh, c'mon, dude, it will do you good."

And, frankly, Jack does not understand how Jesse manages to talk him into it - the word 'chaperone' might have been mentioned in the passing - but after two drinks and an hour or so on the dance floor, he does feel relaxed and wired at the same time as he navigates back to the bar. Genji is still nursing the same scotch, slightly emptier than before. Probably that one glass is enough to keep him buzzed for the duration of the entire night, what with the amount of the actual blood he has in his system. Jesse and Lucio are talking animatedly. Jack takes the free stool and flips through the pages of the price-list built into the bar, stopping on the more interesting cocktails.

"Bloody Mary. The other menu."

The bartender looks at him quizzically.

"You don't look like one to enjoy the more sophisticated drinks."

A rather quirky and unfitting word to describe what is basically a cocktail catering to vampires that are apparently a welcome clientele in the club.

"Hey, dude, JJ, he's a freak," Jesse yells from the side over the music, "but he's our freak, so give him what he wants, would you, dude?"

It turns out to be watered down blood with hardly any trace of alcohol in it and a celery stalk thrown in, served in a wine glass with some damn goofy bats on it. Way to stay inconspicuous - Jack snorts before taking another sip, surprised at how agreeable the concoction is. The flavor spills on his tongue and teases the sense of smell, not quite there yet, has him drink the rest of it in one go as he chases after the climax of the taste, and leaves him waiting on the last drops. Licking his lips with a sigh, Jack places the glass back on the bar counter.

Only now he notices the place next to him has been taken in the meantime.

"The same, again, JJ." The man has a deep voice and an eye-catching cybernetic, high grade. Definitely a designer shell on it built for aesthetic value.

"Change the water for ninety-proof, would you?" Jack nods at the bartender. The alcohol adds a layer to the impression, biting where the taste of blood fades. Jack shifts his attention back to the man, and the suits lounging nearby. They fit in the awkward way any corpo rat in a place like this would, if not for their attentiveness. "Counting on something, rich boy?"

Metal fingers grip his jaw, turning his head to the side, put the pressure in, the grab far too familiar in how it applies the force to the bone.

"Those are some fine cock-sucking lips, pity for them to go to waste."

As his eyes drift lower and stop at the rich boy's crotch, Jack catches himself on the fact he's considering it. But the thing is, nobody touches him like they own him, except for Gabriel - because Gabriel does own him. There's something vicious and cruel winding up in him.

"Say what, rich boy, you beat me," Jack flicks his eyes visibly towards the stage, "you get them."

"Even better without the teeth," the rich boy laughs, nodding to the bartender, and the hand is off. Oh, it's a risk Jack's willing to take because there's a point to be made.

"Put it on the ice." He gestures to the drink and hops off the stool, moving towards the stage without looking back, knowing he's being followed. The lights and the music change, people knowing the club's gimmick move back from the marked spot and pull the stragglers with them.

Jack jumps over the rising waist-high barrier and stops slightly off the middle of the ring. He turns around and rolls his shoulders, the right still sore and hurting. Somehow, Lucio is already on the stage chatting up the DJ. The rich boy gets right in his face. Smirking.

"Your bitch ass is mine."

"Sure."

All the lights not focused on the ring and the stage go out.

Jack dives under the first swing. The second one he sidesteps, it's his turn to smirk as he judges the technique and the speed, the coiled spring in him ready to snap. There’s momentum behind the punches, but the speed and the precision are lacking. The footwork is not especially good, either, but the rich boy might feel cocksure because the pure mass and strength probably won him some scuffles, not to mention the monkeys at his heel. To pass the real judgment, though, he does have to get hit.

Jack fumbles partially the next dodge, the fist connecting with his face carries a surprising amount of force behind it even as he's moving away from it - the hand is not only for show, it seems - the second jab comes abruptly. As he hits the floor, the thought he's not the only one to con this fight is unexpectedly exhilarating.

Goddamn fucking McCree screams 'five hundred on the blondie' from the side.

Jack rolls away from the punch that leaves a dent in the spot he had occupied a moment earlier. He pivots on the ball of his hand evading the following hit and jumps to his feet. This would do some serious damage. The stakes just got higher.

Jack licks the blood off his lips, the taste now undiluted, coppery, wipes the rest of it with the back of his hand, smearing it and smiling widely.

"That one's a freebie, enjoy it while it lasts."

The punches come reliably in pairs, the cybernetic hand is favored over anything else, probably at the cost of other techniques.

The coiled spring snaps, and Jack goes into the offensive, dancing out of the way and turning. The first punch misses him completely, the second one catches the sleeve of his jacket as he puts his elbow with the added momentum of the movement below the joint - skirting under the other hand immediately to find himself at the rich boy's back. He plants a foot on his ass and pushes, sending him tumbling to the ground. The surprised look of someone who just realized they bit off more than they can handle is a cherry on the top of the fucking cake.

Jack, swaying to the rhythm of the music, waits for him to get up. The flash of anger - closer to rage - at the obvious disrespect fuels his interest in the fight. He baits the guy two or three times - gets away in the last moment driving home the point he's untouchable until he allows it - watching the rich boy’s coordination and control go to shit.

It's a dangerous kind of game, pushing the opponent until they feel cornered and lash out, but the rush makes up for it.

Jack meets the rich boy in the middle as he changes his approach from evasion to the offense; goes for a quick jab below the ribs followed by a hit below the jaw. He deflects the grab aimed at his head - the fingers close around his forearm - he drags the hand holding him in front of the rich boy's chest while turning on his left foot and throws his other leg up in with a half-turn - hooking the ankle behind the man's neck.

Then, he brings his leg down with force, noting, again, the sheer surprise on that face - the grip on his arm seizing and taking with it the sleeve of his jacket and leaving the synthskin under it scraped by the fabric.

Jack puts the knee in the rich boy's nape as he lies. With the cybernetic trapped under him and his left arm twisted, he is in no position to try anything, especially when Jack adds more pressure to the wrist. He leans down, chuckling, bringing his lips closer to the man's ear.

"Who's the bitch now?"

He gives the arm another cautionary shake before he jumps off the rich boy's back and leaves the ring. At least, compliments due where they are, he knows when he's beaten and doesn't follow to make a scene.

Back at the bar, with Lucio fretting over his face, Jack finishes his drink. Genji is already gone, and Jesse’s nowhere to be seen - until Jack catches the sight of him leaving the club with a bob of white hair on his shoulder. Fucking moron. If Jesse turns up later as a vampire or a desiccated corpse lying in some ditch, it's not Jack's problem anymore.

He hisses briefly as Lucio sets his nose proper and dabs it one last time with a tissue for good measure before making his way back to the stage. Time to get going, he can feel the interest of the spectators in him growing. Jack waves the bracelet at the reader. It blinks red. His tab is paid.

Maybe Jesse, with the money he made off him.

Outside the club, Jack briefly considers catching a cab before his eyes land on the luxury car one of the suits from before is leaning against.

Fuck it.

It's the night of poor decisions all around, Jack thinks as he strides towards it.

"Move," he barks at the monkey, not waiting for the tensing man to comply before he opens the side door looking inside. The rich boy puts away his phone and the other suit aims at Jack's head with the handgun. "Send the monkeys away, or have them sit in the front."

Their displeasure is visible and only serves to heighten Jack's amusement, more so when the rich boy nods. He gets in, gives the approximate address of the dock, and the car starts rolling down the street to join in with the traffic.

"One rule. You touch me only when I tell you to."

He makes quick work of rich boy's pants and grips the already half-hard length in his hand - looking up with a clear warning on his face before he goes down on him, feeling the cock properly fill out and become rigid between his lips. Makes sure his teeth scrape against the skin. He pulls away when the hips under his palm start to jerk with the motions and swats with a warning growl at the hand reaching to hold him in place.

Still kneeling on the floor, Jack strips out of both the jacket and the shirt underneath in one go, throws them to the side. Unbuckling his belt, Jack moves to the opposite seats, braces against the back, and looks over his shoulder.

"Need a special invitation?"

The inside of the car is too small for anything like this - for both of them - Jack delights in how it puts the rich boy in an awkward position. A moment later, he has his face pushed into leather and a hand fumbles with his pants. He hisses first at the burn, the cramping pain deep inside rips an aborted whine out of him - cold metal planted between his shoulder blades keeps him down, not that he minds.

Jack’s fingers rip up the upholstery.

Greedy and selfish, it's what the rich boy is, as is Gabriel himself, but how the same quality differs so intricately between the two of them is something illuminating in its simplicity.

The rich boy takes and tries to assert his dominance when he has none, whereas Gabriel knows Jack belongs to him and Jack knows back he himself is, in a way, his prized property to be taken care of - the bullet to be fired at whatever Gabriel wishes him to destroy.

The sex is barely satisfying and ends too soon with the rich boy falling against his back - Jack shoves him off unceremoniously and tucks himself back into the pants - but it manages to scratch the itch he didn't even know simmered under his skin for the whole evening.

"Save it," Jack nips in the bud whatever the rich boy wants to say as he gathers his clothes from the floor. "No matter what mommy and daddy let you play with, you can't afford me."

He puts the period on it with a slam of the door behind himself.

The lone security guard at the gate with maybe a tad too secretly amused expression on her face buzzes him in. Jack doesn't worry about giving out the location, no-one with any sense tries to get too deep into the seaside properties, and tomorrow he's gone from here, anyway.

In the morning, flowers wait for him at the gatehouse: a basket overflowing with white, gold, yellow, and blue. The card attached holds an unsigned phone number. He pockets it.

"Keep the flowers."

"What am I supposed to do with them?" The guard sounds offended, her face scrunched in something between offended and bewildered.

"Eat them?"

"You don't eat flowers."

"Artichokes?"

"That's one flower, and it's green."

"Fair. Leave them, throw them out, I don't care."

"The basket's nice, don't want it?" The guard leans on her elbows, thinking. Jack lifts his carry-on up for her to see.

"That's all I travel with."

He leaves her still pondering the flowers to catch his train moving inland - a first-class ticket and the whole compartment to himself, all booked by Sombra. Sometimes Jack wonders if she ever sleeps.

The itch is back with a vengeance, and he taps an anxious rhythm into his knee. An hour before his stop he realizes it's another episode coming, the prickling shifting deep into the bones, yet on the verge of becoming an outright ache above the everyday static of pain he can keep under the edge of his awareness. Just his fucking luck.

Until now, it's been possible to navigate around the days he got reduced to jittery nauseated mess hardly capable of logical thought and any movement besides dragging himself to the bathroom, maybe back if he didn't collapse on the way.

Keeping from lashing out is taxing.

It disconcerts Jack more Gabriel will witness him in this sorry state than Gabriel seeing the bruises and other marks left by someone else on his body - at least on parts that were still his body and not artificial filling for what he had lost. The need to back out of the earlier-than-usual meetup and the sudden surreal hope that maybe Gabriel will fuck him through it contradict - he doesn't even know if either is a viable option, each for a set of different reasons.

He's paler than normal when he steps off the train.

By the time he reaches the hotel he's sweating and breathing shallow, the pain in the imaginary joints rising well above the threshold and crashing in waves rolling over to his chest and stomach. His fingers swipe over the keyboard, too uncoordinated - sending the customary text. Getting the reply only acts to exacerbate his anxiety and question the reason to arrive. The hesitation proves to have substance when he notices two suits standing guard in front of the door, an ork and a bluish-skinned elf.

"She's waiting for you," the elf addresses him.

Against his better judgment, Jack enters the suite, ready for... For what, he has no idea, just hopes his clenched jaw radiates apprehension rather than anything else - a tall order, he knows.

'She' gets off the sofa with a strange flowing quality, at least Jack suspects so. The wide-brimmed hat decorated with dark fabric shaped into flowers hides her frame behind a veritable veil of darkness from behind which only two glowing mismatched eyes are visible.

"Gabriel can't make it." The voice is without a doubt feminine. She circles him once, observing him like some exhibit on a display. Jack feels anger floating to the surface at the unwelcome scrutiny he's subjected to. "Fascinating," is the ending conclusion. The gloved hand emerges from the curtain of darkness holding a familiar object.

A pillbox.

"This is a new formula that should be more effective in treating your unique condition, you should start administering it immediately." Her tone is flippant and uncaring. "I am told you are careless with taking the medication as recommended."

Jack grabs the box from her hand; the gloved finger his hand brushed against is either ended in an elaborate manicure, or tipped with a claw.

"I don't see how's that any of your business."

"I am, after all, the one manufacturing it. I would hate to see my work go to waste."

Without another word, covered by her own bubble of darkness, she glides to the door, leaving Jack alone and glaring at the pills.

The temptation is there, enticing and futile. He made the mistake once, he's not going to repeat it.

The first time, popping the pills one after another for a brief relief from the hurt: the few seconds of bliss when nothing ached forgotten immediately after when the pain slammed back into him without warning - screaming in frustration when there were no more left to take. The first time was the worst, the rest he just suffered through.

His fingers shake when he sets the pillbox down on the table - the dancing twitches playing off the connected nerves sending out random signals in confusion.

Jack stumbles to the bathroom and sinks to his knees. Forehead resting on the cool raised edge of the tub - terrifyingly conscious of every single inhale and exhale - skin clammy and cold and hot. Slowly, he sets the parameters, stopping each time he has to swallow the tasteless saliva gathering in his mouth.

He almost gives up twice: once before finishing the setup, the second time as he's trying to undress himself - the drive to just curl up on the floor barely losing to the prospect of some relief.

Sitting on the rim with his feet submerged in the water, Jack plugs into the pad.

"Som?" He reaches out after wrestling his thoughts under some semblance of control. When she nods back, he concentrates on the memory. "I want to show you something."

She pulls it up and watches while Jack smiles, feeling the wave of emotions and sensations wash over him. The dragon glides in the water again.

"Wow. That's why you purged the drives?"

For a moment, he loses track of his thoughts.

"Yeah."

"You sound strange, I know Gabe couldn't..." There's a shift in her voice and her distress banishes the rest of Jack's control sending it spiraling as he clenches his jaw. "Your cortisol levels are off the charts, as well as... Why didn't you tell me you're in so much pain, I'm sending something right..."

"No!" Jack interrupts her, too sharp and sudden. "No," he repeats after a deep breath. "It's normal. I just have to... It won't help."

"Jack."

"It happens. Flare-up. It will pass. Just... could you loop it for me? The dragon?"

Sombra stays silent for seconds ticking away before the scene plays out again in his mind.

"It will stop when you unjack."

"Thanks, Som. I mean it."

"I know. Fuck. This isn't right. I'll work on it."

"It's okay," Jack slips into the water, the momentary temperature shock providing a short respite before the nerve endings become accustomed. "You did what you could."

"Hang in there."

"Thanks."

He sinks to the bottom.

Arms wrapped around knees, Jack lets his mind flow with the memory. Under the surface, shortness of his breath makes no difference and the saltiness of the water flushes away the horrid taste in his mouth. Almost enough to keep thoughts from forming- coast over the waves of pain. Between this, and the moments he relives, time becomes meaningless, counted only by the steady movement of his chest.

The sensation that shouldn't be there sends him spiraling into confusion and panic - a brush against his back becoming a grab - breaking the layer - drowning.

While trying to fight off whatever - whoever - it is, and coughing out the water, his hand catches on the cable and rips the plug out. Only when something puts pressure on the bone below the hinges of his jaw, Jack realizes he's lying down and grabs at the arm holding him.

"Stop struggling."

The voice and the command register slowly, and when they do, he lets his palms fall away from Gabriel's hand. His head is turned to the side and the vertigo of the renewed connection provokes another wave of nausea Jack protests with a whine.

"How many times?"

He has to hear it twice with the fingers digging into the vulnerable points of the bone emphasizing the words for the question to parse.

"Eight... ten?" Jack licks his suddenly dry lips, tracking with his eyes the syringe Gabriel holds with his other hand. "..'s not going to help."

He had not needed to talk during any of the previous episodes and he winces hearing his own slurred words, more than he does at the prick of the needle and the numbing cold propelled by blood crawling from the injection site in his neck. The freezing pain is almost the polar opposite of the sensations thus far - he panics, again, trying to fight off the unmoving hand until the ice sinks its teeth deep into the marrow and shoots through his brain as he jolts on the bed with a scream before he blacks out.

When Jack comes to, the light is too bright, the contrasts too strong, and it floods his vision even through the clenched shut eyelids. He's hot, far too hot, the back of his head is damp - warm hair sticking to his neck, slicked to his forehead and temples with sweat. What is worse, whatever he's lying on - and under - is coarse and abrasive, even the minimal friction caused by his chest rising and falling with each breath is nigh unbearable.

Moving his arms proves to be an exercise in futility with how sluggish and weak they feel. Through the cotton fog swirling in his mind Jack wonders about the malfunction - how much the limbs are fucked if they refuse to cooperate with the nerves, the intent itself should be enough to prompt the action - or is it him who's fucked with the neural pathways misfiring.

He manages to kick the sheet down, it's enough to get it past the hips. The synthskin's not reacting to whatever's going on – otherwise, he'd go crazy from this. The cool touch on his stomach makes Jack jump in place and groan as the surprise forces his eyes open.

Unsticking the tongue from the roof of his mouth requires some work.

"Why are you here?" Is what Jack intends to say. What makes it out instead is garbled and croaking.

"You were experiencing a toxic hormone buildup," Gabriel replies like that's the answer to his question.

"...what was?"

"Artificial hormones to counteract, and stabilizers."

"Huh?" It's even harder to focus with the fingers gliding in slow circles over his skin - soothing - almost enough to forget the discomfort. "Would pass, normal."

There's no response, of course. Jack licks his lips. The points where Gabriel put the pressure when he held him down still hurt. Funny how he can recall only one other time something like this has happened.

He had his arm blown off and caught several slugs with his side. It had been his own fault, probably, and Gabriel had a discernible aura of anger and irritation to him when reaching for the hand and lifting the shirt to check on the stitched injuries. And being manhandled like this didn't sit well with Jack, yet. Ended with him pressed against the wall, Gabriel's hand on his throat - fingers digging into the bone and his knees going weak - and mind-blowing sex. The first fuck of his new life, and no questions asked.

"We could talk?" Jack suggests, finally able to see in the dimming light. "Don't think... I'll remember it, anyway," he adds when it obviously falls on deaf ears, but Gabriel's always like this, this being this, no explanations, no nothing. It bothers him now, surprisingly, between feeling like a wet cloth, the fuzz, and Gabriel's aloofness.

Eerily, brings up the same mean streak as before.

"Did you... you and him, did you fuck?"

The thing about Gabriel is, he never lies. Just doesn't answer if it's inconvenient. The palm lying flat on his stomach, now motionless, gives merit to the question one way or the other.

"We had... a relationship, of sorts."

But Jack gets his answer and it fucking hurts to hear Gabriel say it. Must be the hormones. The curiosity, too, because for years he had managed to not give a fuck about it all until now.

"What was he like?"

The chuckle has him turning his head to confirm its actuality - the plug catches on the cloth - he's still jacked in. The cool air on his wet hair sends shivers down his spine as Gabriel puts away a book, a paper one, to help him move to rest on his side.

With the bent arm trapped underneath, it's almost bearable. The pillow remains damp and warm.

"Impudent and fearless, the two definite qualities of his."

"Got it. Stupid and bitchy." The irony of basically badmouthing himself does not escape Jack. "Sounds like someone I know."

"Does it, now?"

"He's dead," Jack blurts out, the words following thoughts without a moment's hesitation, tumbling out one after another with no consideration. "I'm the one in here. If he comes back, it's not going to be him."

Gabriel tips his chin up with his thumb.

"Impudent and fearless, and so very clever, too clever for his own good. At least, with you, I can hold a conversation."

It's Jack's turn to chuckle.

"You could. If you ever talked to me. You're only talking to me because I won't remember it, remember? That's what you think."

"Probably."

"That's. Fucking. Cruel."

"Or maybe because you are asking now."

"I don't ask because you never tell me shit." Jack's sure his weepy frustration - and the emotions all over the place - can be easily read in his voice. "Who was he to you, anyway?"

He's steeling for the punch when Gabriel appears to be mulling the question over in his mind, his thumb tracing Jack's lower lip.

"Someone special." It hurts. He should fucking stop doing it to himself. "And, so are you. Both alike, yet unique in ways you could never comprehend."

"Maybe I could. But you won't tell me."

"No." The finger leaves his lips and travels down along his throat, past the dip between the collarbones.

"See. Herein," Jack laughs at the word, giving in to the fog, lightheaded as if drunk, "lies the problem. You never tell me shit."

"It is for your own good."

"Bullshit. You don't want to deal with the fallout, do you?" The last part barely makes it out of his mouth before Jack flinches at the touch with a high-pitched inhale cutting off anything else he wants to say. Fuck. That's one way to end the conversation. He's really fucked up if he didn't notice he's fucking hard since some point in time - and Gabriel is taking his sweet time too, teasing with his hand - it's not enough, and Jack reaches out to pull him closer barely registering his limbs finally cooperate with him. "Fuck. Don't... please."

He's choking up on words. Gabriel shifts to lean over him, continuing the deliberate motions with no intention of letting him finish, and his desperation is growing, punctuated by small sounds of distress slipping out as Jack digs his fingers into his back. The sensation of being filled arches his spine - it doesn't feel right - not wrong - just not right - but he clings to it with a needy whine and jerking hips - trying to pull the body above him closer, giving up any kind of control in lieu of chasing the denied pleasure.

The first rolling wave has him biting on the fingers between his teeth - toe-curling as it spills down the phantom nerves and runs back - still not enough, and he pleads with the whole of himself for release only to be rebuked with Gabriel's voice in his ear leading him through it. Again and again - until he's a crying mess gasping for breath and begging for Gabriel's mercy - and when it is granted, he's unprepared: coming with a soundless scream caught in his throat and his back taunt like whipcord before sinking under the surface into the depths.

Pliant, shaky, and raw, is how Jack feels waking up tangled in sheets; still too warm but not burning hot anymore, sticky with old perspiration and damp with fresh sweat. Alarmingly... lucid. The light speaks of early morning, or that peculiar breaking moment of the evening. Either way, it no longer pains his eyes.

The itch in his bones lingers, but gone is the urgency - and the memory of yesterday redefines his concept of mind-blowing.

Parched, Jack sits up looking around - feels his heart fall before he spies Gabriel sitting on the covered balcony, working, as usual, judging by the screens surrounding him, but Jack will count his blessings because Gabriel wasn't even supposed to be here according to that woman that has his skin crawling even now when he thinks about her.

He slips out of the bed, standing on wobbly legs.

The sheet feels too coarse around his waist and he discards it, walking the rest of the way naked. The artificial breeze feels wonderful on his skin. Jack halts in front of Gabriel - trying to grasp the vague recollection of... actually having a conversation with him.

"We talked," he blurts out at the questioning gaze of black and red eyes, surprised. "Yesterday."

"Yes." Gabriel holds out his hand in an invitation to him.

"What did we talk about? Was it important?" He waits for a rebuttal and laughs when Gabriel remains silent, puts his palm in Gabriel's waiting hand, and lets himself be pulled to sit on his lap, conscious in an instant of the fact he's ruining one of those ridiculously expensive suits just by touching it. "It was important. But you won’t tell me what it was, will you?"

"No."

There's a glass pressed to his lips and Jack eagerly drinks the water in big thirsty gulps, some of it dripping down his chin; he stops Gabriel from taking it away before he finishes all of it, and then just leans against him with his cheek cradled to his neck. He winces at fleeting nausea when Gabriel plugs his jack in, but, even so, the mood settles soon into comfortable silence - and he had learned to treasure those rare quiet moments with Gabriel. There's just something bothering him, more humorous than anything else.

"You know," Jack finally gives voice to it, "I'm willing to bet my meager possessions you actually knocked me out with an orgasm."

"You would lose them in the wager."

"Oh. Fuck. I was being only half-serious."

"You should be 'half-serious' about your health."

Straight to what Gabriel considers being the issue.

"It has always passed before, so that's..."

"Then you would notice those 'episodes' of yours are regular and take place approximately every five months."

Jack winces at the unusually irate note in Gabriel's voice.

"They do?"

He feels that sigh with his entire body.

"At the moment, the foremost concern is finding an adequate formula to mitigate the unaccounted symptoms. You will sign in with Sombra every day so she can gather current metrics."

"If it happens in five..."

"I accept no objections.”

Jack turns his head so he can look over the screens in the air - most of them blurred with personal encryption, and probably nothing he would even understand - but he notices one static picture with live readable feed and his stomach plummets for a second.

The perfect explanation for Gabriel's general disposition.

The rich boy.

And Jack has to breach the subject, somehow. Because Gabriel won't. He shifts and points to the holoscreen in question.

"Are you... Are you angry about it?"

"I am irritated by your negligence."

"And this?"

"It is of no consequence. It's understandable," Gabriel continues without missing a beat, "that you would find other sexual partners."

The dismissal should put him at ease, not threaten him with the inexplicable urge to cry.

"Tell me I'm not allowed to."

"Would that change anything?"

"If you tell me I'm not allowed to," Jack pushes his face into the crook of Gabriel's neck in some form of trying to hide away from the tumultuous swirl of emotions it brings up, "then I won't. Please, tell me I'm not allowed to."

Fucking pathetic for a grown man, to fight against tears and fail, but it's what happens when Gabriel remains silent on the subject, and Jack tangles his fingers in black fabric, the stifled sobs raising in force. Fucking pathetic, losing it over a thing he always knew. And fuck hormones for making him feel shit - now he would take the pain over this complete mess. And fuck Sombra for telling Gabriel on him.

And, honestly, fuck himself for harboring some kind of misguided hope against any logical rationale, Jack notes with the angry spite. Angry is often better, but now, it's not helping at all. It only makes matters worse.

Slowly, he drifts off into a fitful sleep, waking only when carried: by his own hand slipping loose off his lap. Gabriel lowers him into the water, the temperature slightly higher than his usual.

"There are other matters I have to attend to." The words are accompanied by the palm lingering on his cheek and the thumb tracing the arch of the bone before Gabriel moves away. Jack waits for the sound of the doors closing behind him. He's just tired as he sinks below the surface.

What the fuck is even his life?


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Relationship trouble, two trashy men being trashy together (I stole this one), the primordial snot theory, and so much drama!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Several things:  
> 1\. I noticed that somehow while thinking Renraku I wrote Arasaka. That one's on me, I'm not going to change it now.  
> 2\. I embraced the fact that while this story is meticulously plotted out (lol), it won't fit into the structure I had in mind originally, so now I'm trying to fit it into 5 chapters. 'Tis a monster, allright. (But giving up on the structure gives me room to breathe.)  
> 3\. I'm really having fun with this one. But trying to write emotional story is so hard. Also, had some bad days earlier, so finishing up a chapter feels great.  
> 4\. I hope it's readable as English is not my forte - but please, enjoy ;)

Give or take a few days, Jesse turns up three weeks later, lacking fangs or a sun allergy, albeit with a certain pallor to his skin and aversion to the light, but that's easily explainable by the obvious hangover he's sporting, the kind that comes with a days-long drinking binge.

"Broke up already?" Jack pours himself a drink and then slides Jesse the bottle with about half of its contents remaining. He obviously needs it more than Jack.

"Don't want to talk 'bout it."

"Good. Because I'm not interested."

He ends up with all the sordid details, anyway.

It takes over two hours for Jesse to explain that his perpetual stalker vampire ex dumped him two nights past the club incident due to him supposedly smelling like a wet dog that also found and rolled in some prime ripe carrion. Jack's not going to comment on that. To him, Jesse reeks of his cigars first and foremost, and maybe under this odor hides a note of wet canine fur, mangy and full of dust - reminiscent of petrichor but more acidic and scratching the throat if inhaled too deeply or closely. Now, it's also alcohol sweat. But those two hours are enough for Jesse to get himself back into the drunken stupor.

Jack relocates him to the couch and orders take out - settling for some suspicious pizza as the safer option out of the available, even if he has trouble deciphering the ingredients. Someone out there probably knows what exactly 'sea chicken baby' is.

To his morbid astonishment, the 'Chicken of the Sea' turns out to be a sea cucumber, bland as fuck if not for the cheese and the sauce - and he's comfortably sure it would taste better raw than baked. He eats two slices and leaves the rest out on the counter for Jesse - and the state Jesse's in, he would probably be happy with a trashcan left out in some alleyway to pick through.

By the looks of him, that's a fair assumption to make, and not at all mean or undeserved.

But the question of how Jesse tracked him down remains. Their hidey-holes over the whole coastal area number in closer to a hundred than a fifty, so it's either an incredible draw of the luck (including the dang spirit dog) or someone had pointed him in Jack's direction. He brings it up during the check-in with Sombra, sure to vent his general disposition at both Jesse's intrusion, and the required daily contact.

"I think some responsibility would do you good," she brushes him off, "so take care of the puppy instead of moping by yourself for days."

"Maybe, just maybe, I do have a reason to mope," Jack snaps at her, "ever thought about that one?"

Sombra sighs.

"I don't know what had happened between you and Gabe, but..."

"Oh, you could, just load it up."

He immediately regrets going off on her, it's not her fault. Only it is her fault, in an illogical and convoluted way - because right now, he needs someone to blame and that someone will not be him.

"I'd never do that unless you want to show me."

Fuck this shit. He's tired and emotionally drained - he didn't even think it was possible.

"Listen, Jack," Sombra continues after he fails to answer her, "you have no idea what ice I had to get through just to send him a message, and the moment he got it, he just dropped everything and walked out of the meeting."

"Yeah, his asset was malfunctioning."

"Whatever happened, you're taking it hard, and you need something to occupy your time because sitting around is doing you no favors to your state of mind."

"Then find me something to do that doesn't include babysitting the human disaster all broken up over my couch."

"The fleet." Sombra mulls something over and Jack, elbows leaning on the windowsill as he finishes his drink, looks over the almost empty street below. "I'm running into walls and I'll need help with some more traditional intel gathering."

"You need hired muscle."

"The gist of it, yes, I need someone to beat some people up so they cough their contacts up, but I'm still pursuing some other venues right now."

"Tell me when you actually have people to rough up, the downtime's killing me, and this place's a total shithole."

"I know. I'll have tickets for you and the puppy tomorrow, and I need you to keep him on a leash because you're going to Yakuza-land for the foreseeable future." He can feel her smile trying to be reassuring pressed against his thoughts. "And you have a meeting scheduled."

"Yeah, about that, one, the only thing I know is 'shakuhachi shite' and 'arigato'," Sombra laughs muttering 'oh god', "and two, he can send them again through the proxy."

"Listen, you don't really want that. And that wasn't even 'fuck off'. That was dirty talk, Jack."

"Figures. I'm..." Jack sighs, massaging his temples. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean it. Earlier, I mean."

"I know."

"I'm just, I don't know, angry? Not with you, you did what you had to, but... It's too much, all of it, and I'm sorry."

"I know. You'll work it out. It's okay."

"Fuck. Thanks, I guess. I'm not thanking for dropping the mongrel on my unsuspecting lap, though."

"You're welcome." She signs off and Jack pulls the plug out.

Even the mere prospect of meeting up with Gabriel after the incident gives him what he can describe only as anxiety. At least, that's what Jack decides to peg it as, something jumbled and all tied up in knots, and self-hating, and making him feel useless.

Nibbling on the third slice of the pizza and watching the sun go down, he knows what it really is, but refuses to give it the proper name. Calling it anything else lets him pretend it's nothing important and go about his life like nothing's different, even if it is - threatening to topple over and crush him under.

When Jesse starts moving, Jack forces him under the shower and his clothes into a washing machine. The thing is done with its load before Jesse is, and he dumps the debatably cleaner garments on the couch - the coyote is looking at him with an expression on its snout that's far too intelligent for his liking, half-mocking, and half-challenging. Jack turns the serape the other way. The coyote, apparently, takes a short hike all around the fabric to end up facing him again, and he could probably get into a trial of persistence with it but has a sneaking suspicion he would lose.

Fuck it. It can stare at him through the back of the couch as he undresses.

Jesse, predictably, ambles out to the shower and straight to the counter to assault the leftover pizza with the zeal of a person starving for days.

"Switch your SIN," Jack instructs him after he catches Jesse's attention with a tactical application of a ballistic shoe.

"What? Why?" Jesse mutters between the mouthfuls.

"We're flying to Japan tomorrow, would be best not to have Yakuza waiting on the ground for you when we get off."

"Why the fuck JIS?"

"Yakuza's probably involved with the fleet Som's tracking."

"They are. Fucking racists."

"You know that?"

"If anything has to do with harm to metas in the region, that's a safe bet it's them." Jesse wipes the oil from his mouth with the back of his hand, and the hand on his stomach. Of-fucking-course. "Say, we gonna be anywhere close to Hanamura?"

Jack sits on the bed, taking off his pants.

"Nowhere close. Everyone knows you there, and you're too recognizable." He stares at Jesse with contempt. "You just broke up with your main ex, you're not getting into another mess with another ex of yours. Don't make me tie you down."

"Nah, that about other business." Jesse stretches and walks around the counter in all his naked glory, stopping when Jack points with definite distaste on his face to the couch.

"You're still wet, the bed's mine, and the dog was giving me attitude."

"Whatever you say, pardner."

Jack cannot blame the sleepless night on Jesse, not directly - he doesn't snore, but maybe his presence has something to do with it. Regardless, his ensuing horrid morning disposition makes Jack snap at Jesse more than once, which Jesse completely ignores, or is simply oblivious to.

After he sends Jesse out with the trash and to wait for the car, Jack gives the flat the last once-over, making sure nothing personal is left lying around - unlikely they'll ever use the safehouse again, but good practice is good practice, and it's best not to tempt the fate.

The trip to the airport is relatively short and eventless, he only has to remind Jesse to switch his SIN once before they board. Jack pushes his bag into the overhead compartment and shuts it with a bang, taking his time before he sits and buckles into the seat.

The moment the plane rolls down the tarmac before takeoff he has to quash down his instincts screaming at him to get up and run. The lurch of wheels losing the contact with the ground below has Jack hunched and holding his head between his hands. Twitching at every suspect sound and tremor of the hull, he has nothing to distract himself with on the flight as his mind runs circles around images of a fiery inferno.

"Dude, have you tried taking something for it?" Jesse tries to start a conversation.

Jack shoots him down with a muttered 'fuck off' before returning to fighting to keep his stomach where it usually is and not in the vicinity of his throat where it battles for space with his now frantic heart. Two hours stretch into an imperceptible eternity of pure torture. Jesse waits for him to regain control of his shaking hands when the plane lands. They disembark among the last of the passengers.

The airport is a reconstructed dream of a crazy architect who, faced with a substantial lack of land, built it floating on water. Jack navigates them through the terminals to the water tram while keeping one eye out for anyone trying to latch onto their trail, hoping they look both intimidating and luckless enough to not attract the attention of any lookouts. It's not his first time in JIS, and, ironically, their best bet is using public transport. Some three years ago, the situation would be different, with the welcoming committee already waiting to bus him to his destination. Now, those bridges were burnt, and the goodwill was gone.

"What's the first rule?"

Jesse scoffs, sprawled on the seat, taking up two spaces realistically, legs kicked up to rest on the back of the seats in front of him to the distaste of the attendant.

"Not gonna risk Yakuza ink, even I'm not that stupid."

Jack stares at him with doubt.

"Except that one time."

"That one was different."

"I'm at loss for words," Jack rolls his eyes. "The second rule?"

"Don't antagonize the local racist shitbags?"

"Yeah, that. And the third?"

"Don't fuck with Yakuza."

"Good one."

"Nah, dude, not gonna go to Hanamura and fuck around, I need to go north later, check out something," Jesse shrugs. "Find someone to talk about that bear spirit because that shit was bad, man, real awful shit."

"I suspect you'll have time to do that. We can go together."

"Nah, no hard feelings, dude, but bear people don't trust that easy."

"Suit yourself," Jack rolls his eyes and nudges Jesse to get up as the tram lines up with the embankment. The taxi that drives them to the hotel rips them off, counting the normal rate several times over. Being foreigners, they are expected to pay more than locals for the same services, and making a scene would only add to the expenses - there's either some notation in the contract that would render any complaint null and void, or the local arm of the law would dismiss it anyway after they had at least ticketed them for creating a disturbance - if not outright put them under arrest on some bullshit charge. Well, Jack's not going to bother with it, it's not his money.

The hotel is one of those ridiculously posh ones, and he and Jesse draw curious glances as they pick up keycards from the reception area.

"Man, that's what I call life," Jesse announces after opening the alcohol cabinet, the first destination he chooses after walking into their shared room. Jack glances at the clock and just like that his heart is back to hammering against his ribs. He leaves his bag on the table.

"I'll be back tomorrow, do nothing stupid while I’m gone."

"Nah, jus’ gonna get stupid drunk and watch some holos."

Jack shrugs and heads out, leaving Jesse to his own devices, hoping he will stay true to his own words and not wander outside, especially not when drunk.

Gabriel's apartment is several floors up and Jack opts for stairs this time. The flight was enough excitement for the day, and the thought of forcing himself into the elevator fills him with revulsion on the spot. Halfway up, he realizes he’s only delaying the inevitable.

The heavy thing settled in his stomach is dread - and maybe, for the first time in his life, his instincts work as they should - screaming at him to run away, no matter where, just away, as he presses the card against the reader and keys in the code. Little late for that, huh? He pushes the door open, wincing at the breach of protocol: so wrapped earlier in his own thoughts he forgot about sending the text. The pad lies in the bag left with Jesse.

"I'm here," Jack announces to the room. His voice falls flat, even to his own ears. Gabriel looks over his shoulder while the screens in front of him flicker off one by one. Fucking dramatic, as usual.

"I can see it."

"I hate flying," Jack scrambles for an excuse - he doesn't need to, but it feels like he does - shrugs noncommittally, holding Gabriel's gaze. The mounting tension in the room seemingly affects only him - some misplaced power struggle Jack loses before it even began - and he breaks away the eye contact, turning away and stepping deeper into the suite. "There has to be a different method to get around."

"It is the most effective one."

The voice sounds too close, following Jack as he sheds his clothes.

"Maybe one that hits the orbit, I heard weightlessness is somewhat like swimming." He can at least give his honest opinion if they're on the subject.

"If the need arises for one."

Yeah, probably any launch of the type is conspicuous and more likely monitored, from the utilitarian point of view only reasonable if the speed is the key. Fuck that.

Jack loses the rest of his garments with the skin on the nape of his neck prickling under the scrutiny. Whether it's imagined or not doesn't matter, it's wrecking his nerves either way.

It's his turn to look over his shoulder, at Gabriel standing some distance away - shifting finally and coming closer to the bed.

"I wasn't aware flight provokes such high levels of stress for you."

Jack bites back the obvious answer - that unless he's bothered to know there's a lot Gabriel doesn't know about him - and the only time he cares to know is when it interferes with the operations. Won't lie to himself about the malice hidden under the thought.

"Now you know."

"Noted."

With Gabriel's thumb raising his chin up and the red and black eyes boring into his own, Jack falls back into the sheets. The sex is great, amazing even - it always is - but there is a certain measure of detachment that prevents him from losing himself in the act.

There's an invisible wall between him and Gabriel, one that wasn't there before, and the more Jack thinks about it curled up on his side, the more he realizes the fault lies with him, and him alone. Things have changed - he has changed - not Gabriel, and neither the arrangement. It's just a business transaction.

Trying to untangle the jumbled knot inside is like picking at an itching scab, only to discover there's pus underneath and nothing's healing. And it won't heal, not when Jack cannot pretend anymore he doesn't care, no matter how much he wants to. If that's what love is, it's a fucking miserable thing he wouldn't wish on anyone; he wonders if his past self also felt the same and he's merely stuck in following a preset rut. After all, the world is a cycle, isn't it?

Wanting Gabriel gone to let him sleep alone is a new one. So he can wallow in misery and self-pity in peace without the subject of his one-sided affection at his back.

Yeah. Love's an absolute utter bullshit, that's what Jack tells himself, staring at his own reflection in the still surface of the lake, fingers trailing in the water. The weathered wooden planks, blackened with tar, are far from the most pleasant to lie on - but the sun bearing down on his skin feels good and allays the discomfort.

The ripples born from his hand idly moving distort his reflection until Jack cannot recognize it anymore as his. And it isn't his, it's something else looking back at him from below the surface. Before he has time to react clawed fingers wrap around his wrist. The shining scales fading in and out of the skin glitter in the light with each minute shift.

It yanks him down with surprising strength

His skin scrapes on the wood - the water is cold - so cold - his lungs hurt with the lack of oxygen when he frees himself from the grip pulling him down - but the safety is far away - too far - and hungry mouths filled with sharp teeth latch onto his flesh.

He drowns.

The ending is the same, it's the rest of the dream that changes.

Lying cradled against Gabriel's side, with the arm wrapped around his waist and the palm resting on his stomach, Jack remains still, trying to wrest his thundering heart under control. Why he even bothers to remains a mystery because there is no viable way Gabriel isn't aware he's wide awake. What's left for Jack is to enjoy the rare closeness, something he's hard-pressed to; the satisfaction eludes him nonetheless while he watches Gabriel work. The screens close and reappear, once or twice prompted by the hand gesturing at them.

Jack tries to focus on the simple sensations: the warmth of the skin, the smell of the ocean, the lingering touch, but soon, it becomes unbearable, this picking at the open aching wound.

He moves away - the arm around his waist slackens and lets him go - and he sits up, disentangling himself from the sheets. Gabriel's attention remains focused on the screens, and Jack struggles for something to say.

"I'm going to take a shower," he mutters in the end, sliding off the bed.

The oppressive feeling of being observed and considered fades after the bathroom door closes behind him.

Of course, the whole room is done in subdued pink - salmon? - with elaborate cherry motifs running unbroken all around the walls with slight hints of darker colors. It's probably pretty and charming, and not at all tacky and lacking any real character or individual touch. Hotels always were like that.

The bathtub looks inviting, and Jack knows he could stay here for days by himself, but the reasons he's loath to are twofold. Jesse definitely constitutes one, the other one being the place that will make him think about Gabriel, and Gabriel only, the distractions available superficial.

Jack steps into the shower and, standing under the rain of warm water, he presses his forehead to the cold tiles. The voice inside his head provides him with an incessant background chant of 'you broke it' until he can't bear it anymore and punches the wall in frustration. The tiles crack.

He has no idea how long he's been in the bathroom - but Gabriel is gone when he walks out.

The pillbox lies on the pillow almost like an afterthought. Jack puts it in his pocket after gathering all his things.

He opts for the stairs again.

What he's not prepared for is Jesse scrambling to look at him over the back of the chair as he enters their room. Jack raises eyebrows at him.

"Shit! Dude. You're, like, glowing, but look like a kicked dog, but seriously," Jesse blindly reaches back behind himself for the open can of beer sitting on the small table, "you're bending the whole flow around you!"

"The what?" Jack notes the smell of cigars in the air, laced with something else, acrid and heady.

"Mana." Jesse sips from the can. "You got a fuckton of magic on you, like, a lot."

"Great. There's to hoping it won't kill me." Jack throws the jacket on the couch, sits in the other chair next to Jesse, and helps himself to the unopened can standing in the middle of empty ones.

"Don't think so, if it's bad, you'd be, like, dead ten times over, what with the potency. No spirit, for sure."

"Great. I feel nothing."

At least now, he had the explanation for Gabriel's clothes trick. Jack opens the can and downs half of it in one go.

"Offense meant, dude, but you got the sensitivity of a low-flying brick, and that means the only sensitivity you got is in the poor dude you're gonna brain."

"Thanks, I guess." Jack chuckles, toasting Jesse with a flourish. "Tell me," he vaguely points at himself, "if it does something weird."

"Will do. Wanna anything stronger with that?"

"That's what stinks in here?"

Jesse looks at him with his eyes pinched.

"Maybe."

"Pass, don't want to fuck up my lungs any more than they already are."

"Dude. You can breathe water, lil bit of smoke not gonna fuck them up."

"Still a pass." Jack finishes the beer and finds another can. "As long as it's not something you can be busted for, go ahead yourself."

Jesse snorts, apparently amused by his comment.

"It's all natural. Like, herbs and shrooms." To illustrate, he picks up a small baggie containing flaky brown fragments. "I smoke 'em, but go as well on the tongue."

This is a terrible idea. And Jack's tempted.

"No," he answers with a delay. "Especially if that's what gave you the mutt, might be contagious."

"Suit yourself." Jesse pulls out a cigar from his pocket and lights it, puffs on it lightly. Jack leaves it without a comment while flipping through the channels on the holo. They're both left with nothing to do for the foreseeable time. Jesse is more than content to spend the days idling: doing nothing but smoking, drinking, and watching tv, but Jack ventures out twice. He gives up on the whole idea of spending time outside of the hotel room soon.

He had forgotten how bland and hostile the whole of the JIS is to him despite the colors and the flashing lights, the music, and the chatter that never stops, or the cities that never sleep. It's a sea of humans only, maybe one or two occasional elves, almost no other metas, which serves to remind Jack that outside of the metropolis it's even worse.

Finding a place to drink and eat he's let in, not to mention not being faced with outright disdain when it becomes obvious he doesn't speak a speck of the language, is too bothersome.

Being confined to the hotel is not the worst thing in the world, Jack decides, not with his surprisingly stable mood, and the fact he's not fixating on the whole situation with Gabriel - only sometimes - and earthly mundane distractions are forthcoming. The majority of it, he thinks, is easily attributed to whatever Jesse's smoking the copious amounts of, and he himself is probably getting high on the fumes by the virtue of widely understood osmosis. Or ingestion. Call it what you will, it works wonders.

The idyll of the carefree quiescence ends with a dream in equal measure disturbingly different, and uncomfortably concordant. His feet are in the water - the waves wash up to his knees. He can feel every grain of sand on his skin: pressing in, irritating, ignored.

Pleasant warmth spills deep to his core, radiates from the bodies pressed to his sides - there's one hand slung over his chest - another carelessly pushes the elbow into his stomach - Jack shifts to remove the discomfort, and as he does so, he senses everyone else moving too. Like dominoes, every change of position prompts a chain reaction following down the line.

Lulled into half-sleep, this strange place in-between lucidity and unconsciousness, his eyes remain closed even with a familiar weight pressing down into almost the entire length of his body.

Something cold tickles his face and Jack finally looks up, at the silhouette cut starkly in the expanse of the pale blue sky, Gabriel's long wet hair brushing against his nose and cheeks, droplets of cool water splashing on heated skin giving him goosebumps.

Jack lifts his arms up. His fingers lock behind Gabriel's neck as he's spread open on the sand, a strange kind of pride bursting in his chest with each bite that draws blood from his skin. Nothing else exists or bears any importance but this one singular snapshot of time dredged from god knows where.

Jack freezes with his eyes wide open, his fingers almost breaking the surface of the water. The sensations - all so very specific and precise, unlike the vague suggestions of the usual dreamscapes - the sand scratching his arms and legs, and the back, the irritation lingering even now. The synthskin, even the kind slapped on his limbs, is never good enough to allow for the definition of the input and the interpretation on the level of the natural skin.

Dredged up. His own thought.

There's a sinking feeling, a frightening idea, that it's a memory. And it's not his. Jack schools his breathing; the jealousy at the effortless intimacy mixed with the shame of being an unwilling observer of someone else's intimate life swirl under his tongue. Or it's all jealousy. And spite. He grips the edges of the bathtub and pulls himself upright.

At the clinking and shuffling from the side, Jack turns his head to see Jesse tucking himself into his pants and buckling his belt.

"Christ, dude, you scared the piss outta me, like, for real."

Jack shows him the finger.

"How does your skin stay on, anyway?"

"It's just what it does? It's only fingers that do this dehydration thing."

"I don't mean that, and don't do this 'rise from the watery grave' shtick when I'm trying to take a leak," Jesse rolls his eyes, a gesture he's so fond of. "Almost pissed all over the wall."

"That's a 'you' problem, not a 'me' problem," Jack mutters, heaving himself upright and snatching a towel off the rack. He wraps it around himself while stepping out of the bathtub.

"Would be a 'you' problem if I'd turned around when you did the 'I live' routine."

Jack snorts, giving Jesse an appraising look supposed to convey his opinion on the subject matter, and moves to the main room - dripping water everywhere - where he sinks into his usual chair.

"By the way, I got my stuff arranged, so I'll be splitting in the evening later."

Jack acknowledges it with a grunt. With Jesse gone, he will probably be about ready to climb walls with the dearth of things left to do. Or return to drinking alone, which, arguably, is far from anything approximating a healthy coping mechanism.

"And you forgot toes. And the soles."

"Hm?"

"The prune looking thing, the feet do that too." Jesse drops back to the couch and plays with the remote. "That's stuff from the time we were all water monkeys, and so we could grab stuff better in water."

"No bullshit?"

"Nah, real stuff, that's why we like water that much. Some of us, at least, that's, like, where we should be most of the time."

"Cool."

"You're still a freak, though," Jesse salutes before opening a beer he has grabbed earlier from the cooler. "No hard feelings, right?"

"None. But, with the world as it is, isn't the whole evolution argument kind of moot? No-one accounted for the magic, did they?" Jack picks the plate with the remnants of yesterday's late-night snack up from the table and tries to discern if anything on it looks poisonous yet. Fried shrimps appear acceptable, to be honest, though the oil probably is a bit stale, Jack decides.

"Now, here, my dude, my friend, is the heart of the matter all those dudes who say a big man, or a big woman, or whatever in the sky did it don't get they get wrong."

"And that is?"

"And that is that even if that's all a fart of some higher power in the sky, it's still a creation, see? Someone sneezed, stuff crawled outta that sneeze, and the world began, it's still their word, ya know?"

Jack nibbles on the shrimp, deep in thought.

"Let's call that 'the great primordial snot theory' and never mention it again, deal?"

"Deal. Sounded better in my head."

"No," Jack lets out a defeated sigh, "you're onto something, but I'm definitely not going into the ramifications of a sneeze being the breath of life."

"But it has a nice ring to it."

"Yeah." Jack focuses on the shrimps, paying only nominal attention to both the show playing in the background and Jesse's mutterings while he slowly gathers his belongings that spread all over the rooms they've shared so far. Later, Jack escorts Jesse to the cab waiting for him, grips his hand for longer than needed when they shake.

"What's the main rule?"

"Don't get inked. Dude, who do you take me for?" Jesse snorts, trying to look offended and failing.

"A moron."

"Fair. Take care."

"You too."

Jesse ducks into his seat in the back of the cab and Jack shuts the door behind him - staying for a moment to see the car speed away from him before he returns to the hotel and for the first time considers the relative wasteland of devastation the room has become. After he pushes everything from the coffee table into a trash bin, he returns to the chair and checks in with Sombra.

"Feeling maudlin, are we?"

Jack shakes his head.

"What gave you the idea? Anyway, you still in Frisco?"

"Yes. Better access points to JIS networks."

"Right. Didn't cross my mind this might be the reason."

"There's good news too. When you get back from your meeting, I'll have a package waiting for you."

The meeting. He's on the last three doses remaining. Anxiety surges up in a sudden spike at the realization. He's been avoiding dwelling on the matter so well he pushed it almost entirely out of his mind.

"A package?"

"Some additional gear we will need to start digging, how to say it, organically."

"Beat people up, you mean."

"Yes," Sombra trails off slowly, a question in the air.

"Go on," Jack urges her, and after a lengthy pause, she continues.

"You never told me you only have nightmares."

"I have other dreams too." He's pretty sure of it, especially after the last one.

"Jack. Every time you enter the REM phase, you have repetitive patterns of stress. Listen," Sombra sighs, probably reading his silence the wrong way, "I wasn't... keen on sifting through all your data, I don't like infringing on your privacy more than I have to, but Gabe insisted on it, and it could've been avoided if you had talked about having problems."

"They're not really problems, though."

He can almost hear her mentally counting down.

"You consistently downplay your pain levels, you don't dream save for reliving the trauma you'd suffered, and, Jack, I tried simulating your brain activity, I clocked out after three minutes."

"I'm used to it."

"That's the thing, you shouldn't be used to it, it's not normal," Sombra huffs, and Jack's sure she's throwing things right now wherever she's physically at by now. "I'm angry with you, we'll talk tomorrow when you get the package, and I'll be less angry."

She disconnects without prior warning, leaving him alone. But that's the thing about pain, you become numb to some of it, Jack thinks, until it becomes just the background radiation of your life.

He takes a quick shower and finds a clean set of clothes to change into.

This time, Jack remembers about keeping the pad on his person, and sends the text as he climbs the stairs yet again, somewhat amazed at how three whole weeks have passed unnoticeably with Jesse there to keep him occupied - he's not going to lie, he's going to miss the bugger. Not the conversations, per se, but rather, the general awareness of his presence. Even if everyone is living their own separate lives outside of the operations, getting together is not so bad, after all.

Jack stops at the doors to the same suite as before. The code is unchanged. A few calming breaths and he walks in.

That's the thing about the constant pain, it doesn't disappear, it just numbs you down - it's a sort of resigned weary acceptance to his situation that leaves a dull ache in its wake, nothing earth-shattering anymore, but it's still there. The half-smile Jack musters at the sight of Gabriel observing him is surprisingly genuine, even to him himself. He can, and will, deal with it. His problem, not anyone else's.

"Long time no see," Jack quips at the inquisitive rise of Gabriel's eyebrow. "Hi, and all that jazz."

He doesn't expect an answer. There is none, save for Gabriel stepping closer, and Jack throws his hands around his neck while his heart flips in his chest - constricts into a singular point of fear and doubt - the touch on his hip giving him something - anything - to grab onto. Grounding, as is the finger raising his chin.

The red and black eyes regard him with moderate interest - observe and scrutinize - pass the judgment on him; Jack leans in against the instinct telling him for once to run and hide from the apex predator before him. But, has he ever listened to it when it urged him to do anything but fight? Not that he can recall such an incident.

In a small act of defiance, Jack catches Gabriel's lip between his teeth, scrapes the tip of a canine on the fragile skin on the inside, hard enough to draw blood. He waits with the bated breath for the reaction, taken aback by a sparkle of what could be amusement in Gabriel's posture, and the kiss, now tinged with the metallic aftertaste, deepening, becoming more forceful, his body pulled flush against Gabriel's, a hand on the nape of his neck.

Jack stumbles over his own feet while being led to the bedroom, lost in the kiss until the backs of his shins hit the edge of the bed, and with a gasp of surprise he lies on the covers - almost falling but also held and lowered - peeled out of his garments, and out of control. Having Gabriel's attention focused on him - and only him - makes Jack's head spin each and every time, regardless of the circumstances; a near-religious experience if he ever had to put a name to it, not unlike the moment the drifting dragon gazed at him - and through him.

He wanders back to the dream - the memory - of the beach, of the coarse sand biting into his skin; Gabriel's locks that have slipped from the low ponytail tickle his cheeks and nose as his fingers dig into Gabriel's shoulders, trying to find a way to bring him even closer. Maybe even to leave a mark - a sign of permanence - something that cannot be denied sunk beneath Gabriel's skin in a desperate attempt to put his claim on him before Jack dissolves in the smell and the taste of the ocean rushing over him, the whirling current pulling him down.

But this is what Jack knows: he is not willing to give this up, this bittersweet torture. It doesn't come as a sudden realization, more like a long-standing knowledge now unburied and close to the surface, driven home with the weight of the moisture hanging on his eyelashes. He reaches out and finds Gabriel's palm, twines their fingers together - always amazed at the contrast and the faint dark red lines following intricate patterns melting into the color of Gabriel's skin - pulls it close to his chest, its back pressing against his heart. Covers both their palms with his other hand and curls around it.

No matter how much it hurts, no matter how much it will hurt, he's not going to give this up because the alternative is far worse, it's being abandoned and empty, and lost, and having nothing but that deep-seated ache.

Like this, he can at least pretend, Jack muses, slowly drifting off.

The first time he wakes up, it is to the darkness of the night and fingers combing slowly through his hair, Gabriel's hand still held close.

The next time he opens his eyes, it's morning, and he's alone in the suite – the pillbox waits on the pillow.


End file.
